Wireless communication is extremely well established billions of people rely on it every day. Wireless power has not been as successful. Near-field, short range schemes are gaining traction for certain range-limited applications, like powering implanted medical devices and recharging cars and phones from power delivery mats. However, these systems are limited to use in near-field. Some schemes for power delivery may require significant custom hardware.
The “internet of things” is a vision in which a large number of devices that sense, compute, and actuate are connected to the internet. One problem for the internet of things is the challenge of powering a large number of devices. Wires are intrusive and expensive to install. It can cost $5K to install a wired sensor in a modern semiconductor foundry, due to the expense of the wire, the conduit, and installation labor, for example. Batteries have finite lifetime, and add cost and weight. Changing batteries in a lame number of devices is extremely burdensome, and thus far has rendered the internet of things impractical.